How To Create More Specific Effects Used In The Oscar Nominated 'Boy And The World' Animation

In this free video, Pro Tools user Marcelo Cyro reveals some of his sound design tricks in the soundtrack of the Oscar nominated animation - The Boy And The World. Watch as he shows how he created some more specific machine related effects. In this video we breakdown the the sound of the flying machine as it turns into a beast.

Recently Pro Tools Expert interviewed Marcelo about how he and the team of 4 produced the soundtrack for this oscar nominated film that is up against blockbusters like Inside Out and the Shaun The Sheep Movie.

As part of a series Marcelo is unpacking and revealing some of the techniques the team used to create the soundtrack in Pro Tools. Over to you Marcelo...

Some sounds of the Boy and the world's movie were created to create a new interpretation of the images because the sound can change the image. This is an example where a flying machine (like a air plane) is transformed into a beast, and becomes a different animal with a different personality all because of the sound.

The sounds created of the machines al have the feeling of frightening and huge animals. But remember this is all in the boy's head, it is like we hear what the boy is imagining rather than reality.

We see this scene, a plane where the sound seems more an animal, like an eagle, scarier than it really is. Notice something very interesting about sound; with sound it is possible to change an image, and create a feeling. Let's break down what was done in this effect:was

A very low frequency helicopter to give a "size" for the plane, give sound the sense of powerful and bigness, low end usually help in this.

Steam sounds, which can interpret like a breath of that animal.

An engine panned left to right to give a sense of movement.

An interesting metallic sound, which echoes an eagle, but feels much scarier.

A real airplane sound to help give veracity to the sounds of the turbines of the machine

A few more synthesized and processed sounds to help this plane have sound of an animal.